The Congo Rovers Part 2

"Now, d.i.c.k, my boy--my dear son--I have said to you all that I think, even in the slightest degree, necessary by way of caution and advice. I can only affectionately entreat you to remember and ponder upon my words, and pray G.o.d to lead you to a right understanding of them.

"And now," he added, rising from his seat, "I think it is time you were on the move. Go and wish Eva good-bye, and then I will drive you down to the Hard--I see Edwards has brought round the carriage."

I hurried away to the drawing-room, where I knew I should find my sister, and, opening the door gently, announced that I had come to say good-bye. The dear girl, upon hearing my voice, rose up from the sofa, in the cushion of which she had been hiding her tear-stained face, and came with unsteady steps toward me. Then, as I looked into her eyes-- heavy with the mental agony from which she was suffering, and which she bravely strove to hide for my sake--I realised, for the first time in my life, all the horror which lurks in that dreadful word "Farewell."

Meaning originally a benediction, it has become by usage the word with which we cut ourselves asunder from all that is nearest and dearest to us; it is the signal for parting; the last word we address to our loved ones; the fatal spell at which they lingeringly and unwillingly withdraw from our clinging embrace; the utterance at which the hand-clasp of friendship or of love is loosed, and we are torn apart never perhaps again to meet until time shall be no more.

My poor sister! It was pitiful to witness her intense distress. This was our first parting. Never before had we been separated for more than an hour or two at a time, and, there being only the two of us, our mutual affection had steadily, though imperceptibly, grown and strengthened from year to year until now, when to say "good-bye" seemed like the rending of our heart-strings asunder.

It had to be said, however, and it _was_ said at last--G.o.d knows how, for my recollection of our parting moments is nothing more than that of a brief period of acute mental suffering--and then, placing my half- swooning sister upon the couch and pressing a last lingering kiss on her icy-cold lips, I rushed from the room and the house.

My father had already taken his seat in the carriage; my luggage was piled up on the front seat alongside the driver, and nothing therefore remained but for me to jump in, slam-to the door, and we were off.

It seemed equally impossible to my father and to myself to utter a single word during that short--though, in our then condition of acute mental tension, all too long--drive to the Hard; we sat therefore dumbly side by side, with our hands clasped, until the carriage drew up, when I sprang out, hastily hailed a boatman, and then at once began with feverish haste to drag my belongings off the carriage down into the road. I had still to say good-bye to my father, and I felt that I _must_ shorten the time as much as possible, that ten minutes more of such mental torture would drive me mad.

The boatman quickly shouldered my chest, and, gathering up the remainder of my belongings in his disengaged hand, discreetly trotted off to the wherry, which he unmoored and drew alongside the slipway.

Then I turned to my father, and, with the obtrusive lump in my throat by this time grown so inconveniently large that I could scarcely articulate, held out my hand to him.

"Good-bye, father!" I stammered out huskily.

"Good-bye, d.i.c.k, my son, my own dear boy!" he returned, not less affected than myself. "Good-bye! May G.o.d bless and keep you, and in His own good time bring you in health and safety back to us! Amen."

A quick convulsive hand-clasp, a last hungry glance into the loving face and the sorrow-dimmed eyes which looked so longingly down into mine, and with a hardly-suppressed cry of anguish I tore myself away, staggered blindly down the slipway, tumbled into the boat, and, as gruffly as I could under the circ.u.mstances, ordered the boatman to put me on board the _Daphne_.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE TRUTH ABOUT FITZ-JOHNES.

"Where are we going, Tom?" I asked, as the boatman, an old chum of mine, proceeded to step the boat's mast. "You surely don't need the sail for a run half-way across the harbour?"

"No," he answered; "no, I don't. But we're bound out to Spithead. The _Daphne_ went out this mornin' at daylight to take in her powder, and I 'spects she's got half of it stowed away by this time. Look out for your head, Mr d.i.c.k, sir, we shall jibe in a minute."

I ducked my head just in time to save my glazed hat from being knocked overboard by the jibing mainsail of the boat, and then drew out my handkerchief and waved another farewell to my father, whose fast- diminishing figure I could still make out standing motionless on the sh.o.r.e, with his hand shading his eyes as he watched the rapidly moving boat. He waved back in answer, and then the intervening hull of a ship hid him from my view, and I saw him no more for many a long day.

"Ah, it's a sorry business that, partin' with friends and kinsfolk when you're outward-bound on a long cruise that you can't see the end of!"

commented my old friend Tom; "but keep up a good heart, Mr d.i.c.k; it'll all be made up to yer when you comes home again by and by loaded down to the scuppers with glory and prize-money."

I replied somewhat drearily that I supposed it would; and then Tom-- anxious in his rough kindliness of heart to dispel my depression of spirits and prepare me to present myself among my new shipmates in a suitably cheerful frame of mind--adroitly changed the subject and proceeded to put me "up to a few moves," as he expressed it, likely to prove useful to me in the new life upon which I was about to enter.

"And be sure, Mr d.i.c.k," he concluded, as we shot alongside the sloop, "be sure you remember _always_ to touch your hat when you steps in upon the quarter-deck of a man-o'-war, no matter whether 'tis your own ship or a stranger."

Paying the old fellow his fare, and parting with him with a hearty shake of the hand, I sprang up the ship's side, and--remembering Tom's parting caution just in the nick of time--presenting myself in due form upon the quarter-deck, where the first lieutenant had posted himself and from which he was directing the mult.i.tudinous operations then in progress, reported myself to that much-dreaded official as "come on board to join."

He was a rather tall and decidedly handsome man, with a gentlemanly bearing and a well-knit shapely-looking figure, dark hair and eyes, thick bushy whiskers meeting under the chin, and a clear strong melodious voice, which, without the aid of a speaking-trumpet, he made distinctly heard from one end of the ship to the other. As he stood there, in an easy att.i.tude with his hands lightly clasped behind his back and his eye taking in, as it seemed at a glance, everything that was going forward, he struck me as the _beau-ideal_ of a naval officer.

I took a strong liking to him on the spot, an instinctive prepossession which was afterwards abundantly justified, for Mr Austin--that was his name--proved to be one of the best officers it has ever been my good fortune to serve under.

"Oh, you're come on board to join, eh?" he remarked in response to my announcement. "I suppose you are the young gentleman about whom Captain Vernon was speaking to me yesterday. What is your name?"

I told him.

"Ah! Hawkesley! yes, that is the name. I remember now. Captain Vernon told me that although you have never been to sea as yet you are not altogether a greenhorn. What can you do?"

"I can hand, reef, and steer, box the compa.s.s, pull an oar, or sail a boat; and I know the name and place of every spar, sail, and rope throughout the ship."

"Aha! say you so? Then you will prove indeed a valuable acquisition.

What is the name of this rope?"

"The main-topgallant clewline," I answered, casting my eye aloft to note the "lead" of the rope.

"Right!" he replied with a smile. "And you have the true nautical p.r.o.nunciation also, I perceive. Mr Johnson,"--to a master's mate who happened to be pa.s.sing at the moment--"this is Mr Hawkesley. Kindly take him under your wing and induct him into his quarters in the midshipmen's berth, if you please. Don't stop to stow away your things just now, Mr Hawkesley," he continued. "I shall have an errand for you in a few minutes."

"Very well, sir," I replied. And following my new acquaintance, I first saw to the hoisting in of my traps, and then with them descended to the place which was to be my home for so many months to come.

This was a tolerably roomy but very indifferently lighted cabin on the lower or orlop deck, access to which was gained by the descent of a very steep ladder. The furniture was of the most meagre description, consisting only of a very solid deal table, two equally solid forms or stools, and a couple of arm-chairs, one at each end of the table, all securely lashed down to the deck. There was a shelf with a ledge along its front edge, and divisions to form lockers, extending across the after-end of the berth; and under this hung three small book-cases, (which I was given to understand were private property) and a mirror six inches long by four inches wide, before which the "young gentlemen"-- four in number, including myself--and the two master's mates had to perform their toilets as best they could. The fore and after bulkheads of the apartment were furnished with stout hooks to which to suspend our hammocks, which, by the by, when slung, left, I noticed, but a very small s.p.a.ce on either side of the table; and depending from a beam overhead there hung a common horn lantern containing the most attenuated candle I ever saw--a veritable "purser's dip." This lantern, which was suspended over the centre of the table, afforded, except at meal-times or other special occasions, the sole illumination of the place.

Although the ship was new, and the berth had only been occupied a few days, it was already pervaded by a very powerful odour of paint and stale tobacco-smoke, which made me anxious to quit the place with the least possible delay.

Merely selecting a position, therefore, for my chest, and leaving to the wretched lad, whom adverse fortune had made the attendant of the place, the task of lashing it down, I hastened on deck again, and presenting myself once more before the first lieutenant, announced that I was now ready to execute any commission with which he might be pleased to intrust me.

"Very well," said he. "I want you to take the gig and proceed on board the _Saint George_ with this letter for the first lieutenant of that ship. Wait for an answer, and if he gives you a parcel be very careful how you handle it, as it will contain articles of a very fragile character which must on no account be damaged or broken."

The gig was thereupon piped away, and when she was in the water and her crew in her I proceeded in my most stately manner down the side and flung myself in an easily negligent att.i.tude into the stern-sheets.

I felt at that moment exceedingly well satisfied with myself. I had joined the ship but a bare half-hour before; yet here I was, singled out from the rest of the midshipmen as the fittest person to be intrusted with an evidently important mission. I forgot not only my father's caution against vanity but also my sorrow at parting with him; my _amour propre_ rose triumphant above every other feeling; the disagreeable lump in my throat subsided, and with an unconscious, but no doubt very ludicrous, a.s.sumption of condescending authority, I gave the order to--

"Shove off, and get the muslin upon her, and see that you crack on, c.o.xswain, for I am in a hurry."

"Ay, ay, sir," returned that functionary in a very respectful tone of voice. "Step the mast, for'ard there, you sea-dogs, 'and get the muslin on her.'"

With a broad grin, whether at the verbatim repet.i.tion of my order, or in consequence of some pantomimic gesture on the part of the c.o.xswain, who was behind me--I had a sudden painful suspicion that it might possibly be _both_--the men sprang to obey the order; and in another instant the mast was stepped, the halliard and tack hooked on, the sheet led aft, and the sail was all ready for hoisting.

"What d'ye say, Tom; shall us take down a reef!" asked one of the men.

"Reef? No, certingly not. Didn't you hear the gentleman say as how we was to 'crack on' because he's in a hurry? Give her whole canvas,"

replied the c.o.xswain.

With a shivering flutter and a sudden violent jerk the sail was run up; and, careening gunwale-to, away dashed the lively boat toward the harbour.

It was blowing fresh and squally from the eastward, and for the first mile of our course there was a nasty choppy sea for a boat. The men flung their oil-skins over their shoulders, and ranging themselves along the weather side of the boat, seated themselves on the bottom-boards, and away we went, jerk-jerking through it, the sea hissing and foaming past us to leeward, and the spray flying in a continuous heavy shower in over the weather-bow and right aft, drenching me through and through in less than five minutes.

"I'm afeard you're gettin' rayther wet, sir," remarked the c.o.xswain feelingly when I had just about arrived at a condition of complete saturation; "perhaps you'd better have my oil-skin, sir."

"No, thanks," I replied, "I am very comfortable as I am."

This was, to put it mildly, a perversion of the truth. I was _not_ very comfortable; I was wet to the skin, and my bran-new uniform, upon which I so greatly prided myself, was just about ruined. But it was then too late for the oil-skin to be of the slightest benefit to me; and, moreover, I did not choose that those men should think I cared for so trifling a matter as a wetting.

But a certain scarcely-perceptible ironical inflection in the c.o.xswain's voice, when he so kindly offered me the use of his jumper, suggested the suspicion that perhaps he was quietly amusing himself and his shipmates at my expense, and that the drenching I had received was due more to his management of the boat than anything else, so I set myself quietly to watch.